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A parable about your relationship with God, your relationship with other people and the connection between the two:

There once was a man who needed a large amount of cash in order to get himself out of a really sticky and dangerous situation.  He had tried everything that he knew how to do, in order to secure a loan to pay off his debt.  But he found nobody willing to help.  So, he tucked his tail between his legs and went to his father. 

Now his father was very wealthy.  And the son knew that the amount that he needed to borrow, in order to get himself out of his physical and financial peril, wouldn’t change his father’s lifestyle one bit.  Yet, he didn’t want to go to his father because they didn’t have the best relationship. 

The son felt that the father had been too hard on him in the past.  To him his father’s expectations always seemed to be too lofty. His father always seemed to want more for him and from him.  Thus, in his mind, he seemed to be constantly disappointing his father in every way. 

It was this strained relationship with his father that caused the son to head out on his own in the first place.  And, in this moment, the son knew that it was the absence of his father’s wise counsel that had caused him to get into financial trouble.  The last thing he wanted to do was to crawl back to daddy begging for help.  For he knew that this would only cement his father’s disappointment forever.  Yet, this was the son’s only option.

When he arrived home, to his surprise, his father was so happy to see him that he threw a big party to celebrate his son’s homecoming.  When the son finally got up the nerve to ask his father for the money to pay off his debts, his father was more than happy to hand all of it over to him.  For it was money the father had, but a relationship with his son that the father lacked.

The father was so happy that he told his son that it was a gift.  He didn’t ever need to pay it back.  When the son asked “What’s the catch?” thinking that he was obviously going to owe his father something.  His father simply responded, “I love you son and I would do anything to save you.” So, because of the father’s gift, the son had enough money to pay off his debts and get out of financial and physical trouble.

About a month later the son was walking along a busy city street and he bumped into one of the guys that owed him money.  A small part of the debt which caused him to go to his father for help.  The son was so upset with this guy that he stopped him right there in the middle of the street and demanded to be paid back.  Not only what he owed the son, but with interest. 

When the guy admitted that he didn’t have the money, in fact he didn’t have any money, the son took him into an alley and beat him up.  The son then contacted all of his business associates and told them about this guy and his situation.  Warning them never to do business with him again.

It wasn’t long before the father found out what the son had done.  So, he called his son and asked him to come and see him.  When the son arrived, the father looked very disappointed.  The son knew his father was disappointed because he had seen that look so many times before.  “I don’t understand your wicked ways!” exclaimed the father.  “I gave you a gift to cancel your debt and get you out of trouble.  Only to hear that you have turned around and hurt someone physically and financially who owed you money.”  The father then simply asked his son one question: “Why would you receive a gift from me and then turn around and not extend that very same gift to someone else?”